Film Posters: Written Codes

Written codes feature in every single film poster with a large majority of films featuring taglines. They are usually catchy, enticing, short phrases used to advertise and sell a movie. However, they can also quickly sum up the plot, tone, or themes of what the film is actually about.

The film poster Source Code makes effective use of its taglines. At the top to appeal to some audiences it features the name of the director who created a previous film called "Moon". This might entice audiences who previously watched a film of is and might want to watch this one. The Tagline" Change The Past, Save The Future". Is an effective use of the rule of three. From this the plot and genre of the film is told to us already. Due to the tagline the audience can assume that an event will happen that will cause the main character pictured in the poster to go back to the past to fix it. It also has the genre of being a sci-fi film with the main character actually being able to go to the past.

This for the audience automatically tells them the type of film that it is and so would have the effect of grabbing the relevant audiences that are needed.

The title is also in big bright red letters compared to the rest of the poster which makes it stand out compared to the rest of the titles. The use of the bright red colour also has an effect of possibly foreshadowing the events that are going to happen in the film. The film possibly has danger, or death somewhere in it denoted through the use of the colours that are there. The title also hints that the as it is a "Code" it is going to be quite hard to solve which could possibly link to a detective genre as well which might bring in a new range of audiences.

The film poster Spiderman 3 despite not saying much compared to the film poster "Source Code" is still effective at what it does. At the top unlike that of Source Code is the tagline "The Battle Within". The rule of three is once again present which gives it a short catchy phrase which the audience are more likely to remember. This tagline like before tells the audience what the idea of the plot might be. In this case the plot could have elements where Spiderman has to fight the darkness within him for whatever reason due to the word "within" which emphasises that the battle is part of him. The image of Spiderman, the protagonist of this film also reinforces the fact that he has to battle a part of him. Through the use of the dark image of the protagonist on the window it shows a direct contrast to the bright colourful "superhero" costume.

The title in the film is also not very clear compared to that of Source Code however this was done as it is a series and a large majority of people are expected to know it. The number 3 is there to present to the audience that this is the third Spiderman film which as an obvious sequel to the previous not continuation. Through everything shown on the poster and the fact that it is raining and grey tells the audience that is a dark film compared to the previous ones. This as a whole setts the scene and has the effect of telling the audience what to prepare for in terms of the tone for the film.


The film poster Grown Ups compared to the last two film posters takes a different tone in terms of its tagline and film title. The image of the five main protagonists of the film are featured to be having fun and laughing when they are going down on the water slide. Therefore it straight away sets the mood for the movie as being quite a comical film which might appeal some people. The tagline of the film is quite ironic more so the beginning. "Boys will be boys" is usually something that will be said to young male children when they do something that is very male. However, it is quite ironic that this phrase applies to the case of five grown up men. This again tells the audience that is going to be lighthearted. This is reinforced by the bright dominant colour of blue. This as a whole sets the mood for the audience who will be able to know that it is going to be a positive film that they will be able to laugh at.

The title "Grown Ups" also works with the tagline. It is perhaps quite ironic as it works against that of the tagline. The fact that they are adults but the title states that some of them take longer to grow up than other people gives a direct comparison to the two.